Same, just saw a quick update on the BBC and it showed people running away from building with huge chunks of concrete landing just feet behind them!

Offices that looks like they're in some childs play toy being thrown around. Computers being literally thrown off desks etc...

And then the flood that seems to be unstoppable. It looks like the front is moving around 4o+ miles an hour! How the hell do you stop something like that? There is no chance.

F*CK!

200-300 bodies found in Sendai.

A nuclear powerplant cooling system has failed.

IIRC the evidence about it is sketchy but it would seem naive to dismiss the notion that the Moon's gravitation would have absolutely no effect on the Earth's tectonic activity. It probably wouldn't cause the earthquake but it might mean it happens now rather than in six month's time for example.

As to the 88,000 people missing, remember that all comms are out in the Sendai area - people can be listed as 'missing' because they can't be contacted, but that doesn't mean they've come to any harm. We probably won't know anything approaching the loss of life for a long time, at least days from now.

map of predicted tsumani wave height

It's going to still be noticeable when it hits places that it's taken 18 hours to get to!

Jon

1st or 6th it is a huge earthquake. Way beyond anything we could get here.


I heard that one island had a 2 m wave and another was less than 30 cm. The main thrust of the wave was to the north of hawaii so it should be hitting the mainland US and Canada pretty hard. I suspect that Alaska will be hit as well.

Two of my friends are off on honeymoon to Japan next week.

Maybe not

Watch the Sendai Coast one - 2 of 5 on this page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pa ... 0#ichihara

It shows the water moving anything and everything over fields and into a town. By the time it gets inland, it looks like liquid wreckage - no hint of water being involved at times. And it just keeps on going.

Some flights have been cancelled, some not. Narita airport looks to have been hit but it's not the only airport in Japan. Plus if they're going to the south end of Japan it seems to have escaped pretty much unscathed, in the grand scheme of things. The Japanese are very used to coping with earthquakes and the like, in a weeks time I'd expect them to be able to go as long as they weren't actually planning to go to the Miyaigi area specifically.


Jon

Yep, that's the one that I saw. When you see it engulfing those farm buildings at the beginning of the clip, you can see the masses of cars and buildings churning over in the wave front. Later on as you see it approaching a road, theres a single car fleeing the scene, I bet the driver was wringing it's neck for every ounce of speed.

I too heard the reports of thousands missing. Encouragingly it seems that those initial estimates were incorrect. Let's hope so.

The tsunami pictures themselves are horrendous. A relentless flow of water and debris taking all in it's path. Trying to put a positive slant on this I can only say that cars, buildings, posessions etc can usually be replaced. People can't.

I'm not a religious person myself so I won't be praying but I'm hoping with every fibre that there are no further big quakes or aftershocks and that soon the population over there can begin to start getting back to some semblance of normality.

Oddly enough I felt the same when Christchurch was hit so recently.

It just keeps on getting more powerful.

Mark

According to the news here, the nuclear power plant is on emergency power and could blow any time...

Nuclear radiation in Fukushima at dangerous levels and the core is damaged. Engineers are trying to repair the core, to stop it melting down.

Source (German): http://www.n24.de/news/newsitem_6722355.html

It has always been a concern what with them being on the edge of two tectonic plates.

Not good, not good for anyone.

Worst case scenario they'll have a way to 'scram' the core. OK, I assume at this point not everyone knows how nuclear reactors work, but the quick summary is nuclear reactors work due to neutrons being emitted and absorbed in the 'fuel', which generates a lot of heat. 'Scramming' is flooding the core with something that absorbs neutrons, which stops the reaction and therefore cools the reactor. That's not what they are doing now - what they are doing now is trying to slow the reaction in a controlled way because the thing is scramming means you pretty much have to rebuild the reactor core after you do it. You're effectively writing off the core to stop it going critical. So they'll only do it if they consider the reactor to not be salvageable and in immediate danger of causing containment to fail.

As it stands, the situation is not imminently dangerous. Nuclear reactors have multiple levels of failsafes and recover systems. And the Japanese are really, REALLY careful about this stuff - much more so than the Russians or the French or us, for that matter. There is obviously still a chance of a series of catastrophic failures which could lead to a nuclear disaster but we're probably still looking at that being the least likely outcome.

For information, the reactors that are currently having problems are 'BWR' - Boiling Water Reactors

Jon